Harry Potter and the Time Mage
by JulesSC
Summary: Stricken by a long war that had claimed too many lives, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville and Ginny time-travel back to the summer of 1992 to change the future and create a better world for everyone. H/G, R/Hr, N/L.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter and the Time Mage 

Summary: Stricken by a long war that had claimed too many lives, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville time-travel back to the summer of 1992 to change the future and create a better world for everyone. H/G, R/Hr. 

A/N: There are a lot of stories out there about Harry time-travelling into the past to change things. Some of them I enjoyed, some not so much. Some I read halfway through before realizing the author has taken a route I didn't like. 

I have been suffering major writer's block for...Well, since before the last time I posted anything here. Forget feeling like I'm a good writer. I haven't even felt like being any kind of a writer. I have the next three days off and I was hoping to maybe get to write something. It always felt like fanfiction gave me confidence so I thought I'd try it again. This is a story that I wrote quite some time ago and never published. Thought I'd see if I could still hack it. 

PLEASE READ: 

There will be SIX CHARACTERS who will return from the future: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom and an ORIGINAL FEMALE CHARACTER Parker James (who will not in any way resemble a Mary Sue or have any kind of romantic relationship with the other five who returned). 

The six of them would've returned from the year 2015, in an alternate universe where the war had gone on even in 2015. 

Harry, Ron and Neville were 35 years old in 2015. Ginny was 34. Parker and Hermione were 36. As such, they will have the mindset of mid-30s war veterans with nearly twenty years of experience, not immature school children. 

Parker James is a thief, and is American. She's inspired by the character Parker from the amazing TV show Leverage. 

This story will begin in the first week of August 1992; just a few days after Harry arrived in the original timeline via flying Fort Anglia. There are a few notable changes, besides the time-travelling veterans. 

**Harry Potter:** He left to find the Horcruxes with Ron and Hermione in the summer of 1997 after Dumbledore's death. He and the others managed to find and destroy all of the Horcruxes – excluding the one inside of him – and returned to Hogwarts for the final battle. Harry killed Voldemort at last in the summer of 1998, a year after their trip begun. Unfortunately, the war didn't end there. Death Eaters revolted against forces of good and created their own revolution. Another Dark Lord named Zankou (taken from Charmed season 7; THIS IS NOT A CROSSOVER, ONLY THE NAME IS BORROWED) rose in 2001, just three years after Voldemort's fall. Zankou gained loyalty from the Death Eaters and riots and upheaval turned into war once more. Harry, Ron and Hermione left once more to go on the road. This time, their goal is to find allies and try to kill off Zankou's allies one by one. They were still on the road – and with fewer living allies by the day – in 2015, and Zankou was still going strong. **Specialties:** telepath (he is able to read, control and influence minds), magical combat (wand magic and wandless duel), foreign magic, transmutation. 

**Ron Weasley:** He and Hermione got married in 1999, a year after Voldemort's defeat. Their wedding was the first happy moment their family had ever since Fred's death. Ron, along with Harry, were Aurors at this point, helping to try and reign in the Death Eaters with little to no luck. In 2001, Ron made another difficult decision and left with Harry, Hermione and Parker to fight darkness on the road. He received word that his family was under attack from Ginny, who used a two-way mirror to inform them in 2003. Ron, Harry, Hermione, Parker and Neville rushed to the Burrow and battled seven Death Eaters. Two were killed, two were captured and the other three escaped. The entire Weasley family except for Ginny and Ron survived. In 1998, Ron suggested to Harry and the Auror squad that they should implement physical fitness and combat into their regime instead of just relying on wand-work and magic alone. Not everyone in the Auror office agreed but Harry took it up with gusto, accompanying Ron to work outs and going to martial arts studios to learn. Ron took it up faster than Harry, absorbing everything like a sponge. In 2001, when they went on the road, Ron was the one who continued to train Harry. Throughout the years, Ron became the most skilled martial artist amongst the six, and the most athletic. **Specialties:** Muggle combat, superhuman strength, stamina and durability; ability to transform his entire body into a form of impenetrable steel that is resistant to great impacts, all muggle weapons and certain magical attacks (it should be noted that in this form, he is able to access his superhuman strength, his height is taller and his weight is doubled). 

**Hermione Granger:** She never did manage to retrieve her parents from Australia or return their memories, first due to the unrest in Britain caused by the Death Eaters and then due to Zankou. Hermione is very skilled in rune magic and creates the protection they needed as they travel. **Specialties:** the ability to absorb knowledge like a sponge by simply touching a book, eidetic memory, casting out strong protective shields with the power of her mind. 

**Parker James:** She was an American-born witch. She was a half-blood: her mother was a witch and her father was a muggle. Her mother died during childbirth and her father, who didn't know anything about magic, started his alcoholic downward spiral. Parker was 3 when she showed her first sign of magic and, shocked and panicked by this, her father left her on the steps of an orphanage. Just her luck, she was taken in just four months later by a family of witches and wizards – they lived in the same town the orphanage was located in and one of Parker's adoptive cousins worked part-time at the orphanage during the summer since there was no school. She and her adoptive family of powerful witches and wizards lived in Salem until 1986 when Voldemort and his Death Eaters tortured and massacred them all. Through sheer luck, 7 year old Parker escaped. She ran away and lived on the streets, learning to survive by becoming a thief – the best thief in the world. In 1996, after catching wind of Voldemort's return, Parker went to London. She tried searching for Voldemort himself, wanting revenge, and only managed to get into plenty of duels with Death Eaters using a wand she had stolen. In late 1997, she bumped into Harry, Ron and Hermione. Recognizing him by his scar, she allied herself with him. It was she who knew how to break into Gringotts, being a powerful thief, and they managed to steal Helga Hufflepuff's cup thanks to her. After the final battle, she stayed with the others though she disappeared from time to time to go on her "stealing spree". When the trio left to go on the road again, Parker went with them, adamant to help. In 2004, when Zankou grasped hold of Gringotts, Parker's abilities were used as she helped steal money, goods and provisions – the only stipulation Harry gave was that she could only steal from the bad guys. Parker was unimpressed but liked it a lot better when Hermione tracked down some pirates for her to steal from, getting them larger amounts of cash and valuables. Parker, who hadn't ever attended a magic school or gotten her own wand, was quite skilled at wandless magic. She was able to focus her magic a lot better after she stole a wand from an unnamed Death Eater when she was 15. After the final battle, Harry took her to see Ollivander to get her a wand of her own as a thank you present. She was most fascinated with the art of becoming an Animagus and between 1998 and 2000, she successfully managed it: her animagus form is a jaguar. In addition to being a thief, Parker was also quite adept at making weapons. It had started out as muggle weapons when she was 8 – to help her stay safe on the streets – but she eventually began making magical weapons. One of her pride and joys is a weapon called an "energy whip" which essentially uses energy from the atmosphere, turning it into a deadly whip that, when wrapped around someone, could burn and sear their flesh. **Specialties:** Agility; ability to be a great thief, moving in an out without being seen; ability to take the potential energy stored in an object and turning it into kinetic energy, charging the object with enough power with explosive results; superhuman physical abilities such as agility, dexterity, endurance, speed, reflexes and reactions, flexibility, coordination and balance; 'phasing' or intangibility which allows her to phase through solid matter without harm. 

**Ginny Weasley:** There was an attack at the Burrow in 2003. Harry, Ron and Hermione returned just in time to save only one other Weasley: Ginny. With the rest of her family dead, Ginny left with the trio to help them in their quest to destroy Zankou and his cronies. Harry and Ginny were married in 2006 in a private ceremony attended by their four friends on the road. They married in a beautiful clearing in a forest somewhere in France. Despite how glum their future looked, Ginny could only hope for the best. In 2015, one of the reasons she wanted to go back and do-over (besides saving her family) was because she wanted a chance to end the war earlier and be able to have a normal married life with Harry; she desperately wanted a child though she knew it was impossible while they were on the road, fighting Death Eaters at every corner. **Specialties:** Spellcrafter, portal creation (the ability to create wormholes/portals for transport between two locations), Firestarter (the ability to create and control fire with one's own mind). 

**Neville Longbottom:** Neville and Luna fell in love in 1999 and were married a year later despite the upset in the Wizarding world caused by the Death Eaters. They had a beautiful ceremony in the gardens at Longbottom Manor, attended by a hundred of close family and friends. Neville and Luna stayed behind in 2001, fighting the battle at home while Harry, Ron, Hermione and Parker went off fighting on the road. Neville's grandmother was killed in 2002 for not wanting to ally herself with Zankou. A week later, the Lovegoods' house went up in flames, killing Xeno and Luna who was visiting. Mourning the loss of the woman who raised him and the woman he was in love with, Neville left to search for the four travellers. He met up with them six months later in Albania and joined them in their slow battle to destroy Zankou and the Death Eaters. **Specialties:** healer, potions master, plant manipulation (the ability to control, manipulate or animate plant life). 

Just like this isn't a crossover with Charmed (despite the use of demons, the Underworld and the name "Zankou"), this also isn't a crossover with X Men or anything else. Some of the "special powers" that the six core characters of this story have are taken from X Men, however, or inspired by them at least. Harry's telepathy ability (reading minds, controlling them, etc.) is taken from Professor X, for example. Ron's steel form and his superhuman strength/reflexes as well as Parker's intangibility is taken from and her ability to turn potential energy into kinetic energy are also X-Men-inspired. The other three have powers that aren't taken from X Men, but they're easy enough to understand – Ginny can start and control fire with her mind, Neville can animate, manipulate and control plant life with his mind, and Hermione can understand all languages just by hearing or reading it, and she absorbs information just by touching a certain book or object (if she touches a book, all she has to do is concentrate and every information in that book will be transferred to her mind). 

* * *

**Chapter 1: The Time-Travellers**

_2015_

_Washington State, USA_

The dark forest seemed even more ominous at night. There wasn't a single animal in sight – no owls, no deer peeking around any trees and – thankfully – no mountain lions looking for an easy kill. A cold breeze blew periodically, ruffling the leaves on the trees and on the ground. It gave the impression of people walking, drawing nearer. It was enough to make anyone on edge. 

Five figures stood in a runic circle, spread out evenly on the red circle painted on the ground. 

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Ron asked nervously as his eyes followed Hermione as she walked around them, muttering protection spells around the runic circle. 

"It has to," Harry answered for her, his voice as solemn as his expression. 

Ron didn't seem all that convinced. Out of the six of them, he was the only one who wasn't a hundred percent on board. He wasn't so sure they could pull off something of this magnitude, even with Hermione on their side. 

"But what if things go from bad to worse?" he wondered, not for the first time. 

Neville glowered at a spot on the ground. He had never recovered from losing his grandmother and his wife, all in the span of one week thirteen years ago. They had received word of St. Mungo's being burned to a crisp and destroying everything and everyone in it – including Neville's parents who were in-house patients there – not seven years ago. Neville's only remaining relatives – his Great Uncle Algie and his wife – had perished in a Death Eater attack three years ago. Each one of these events had turned him darker and darker and now there was nothing left in him but hatred for evil and the burning need for revenge. 

"It's already worse," he spat out. "What else is there to lose?" 

Ron was going to point out that he could lose his wife and his sister. They could all lose each other. They could die. 

But Harry reached out and grasped his arm, subtly shaking his head. 

Neville was right anyway. 

They had been on the road for fourteen years, fighting off Death Eaters and vampires and werewolves and giants...Zankou had only gotten stronger and stronger. And ever since he had opened the gateway to Hell and released demons from the Underworld onto earth...It had been a pointless battle; one they couldn't win. 

They needed more time and the only way they could get it was by going back to the past. 

Even if it meant having to re-do it all over again. 

Even if it meant Voldemort would still be alive. 

Eighteen years ago, Harry would've never thought anything could be worse than Voldemort and his abominable existence. Of course, then he had been a very naive seventeen year old who had no idea that greater evil existed. 

Ginny, standing on the other side of Harry, grasped Harry's hand tightly. "Think of everything we could gain, Ron," she said, her voice shaking at the mere thought of what they were about to do. She was terrified and exhilarated at the same time; she didn't want to have too much hope only to have it destroyed later. "We could see our family again." 

"Yeah, or we could die," Ron muttered under his breath. _Then again, that's also another way to see them again_, he thought. It was only the thought of any harm coming to his wife, his sister and their little makeshift family of warriors that made him pause. 

Suddenly, something dropped from one of the high branches of the tree behind Ron and Neville, right down to the centre of the circle. It startled the other five so badly that they were all reaching for their wands. 

Then, of course, they remembered that their wands weren't with them but tucked safely away in Hermione's beaded purse with the extension charm on it. 

_On second thought, it probably wasn't a good idea to be without our wands_, Harry thought anxiously, feeling naked without it even if he had mastered wandless magic ages ago. Force of habit, he supposed. 

They needn't have worried, however. 

The woman who had so gracefully taken a fifteen foot drop without breaking a single sweat had sunny blonde hair, and her eyes were a startling deep icy blue colour. Her skin was a pale ivory, a stark contrast against the all-black ensemble she wore, and – just like her hair – stood out like a beacon of light in the dark forest night. 

Her words sent a shiver down their spine. 

"They're coming." 

They tensed for a second before they sprung into action. 

"Parker, get in position," Harry whispered harshly, and the woman slipped in between him and Ron, standing just inside the red painted runic circle on the forest floor. 

Ron switched between turning his head this way and that, trying to spot the incoming danger, and keeping his eye on his wife, still making her rounds around the circle, whispering protection spells hurriedly under her breath. 

"Hermione," he whispered urgently. 

She ignored him, speaking speedily in Old Latin as she moved, her wrist flicking her wand this way and that. 

"Hermione, come on!" Ron moaned, cold sweat breaking out over his forehead and his heart racing wildly. 

Harry, catching sight of the first dark robed Death Eater, frowned heavily. Next to him, Ron took on his steel form – the form he always took when he was anticipating battle. It was his defensive mode, one that he took almost unthinkingly ever since he had been able to do it for the first time just a little over ten years ago. 

"Hermione, get in!" Harry yelled, raising his hand and throwing a quick cutting curse at a Death Eater who was a little too close to Hermione, his wand pointed at her and his mouth opened to curse her. 

Ron growled in anger and moved to step out of the runic circle to attack the Death Eaters but Neville yelled out, "Stop! We can't move out of this circle!" 

Neville had flung his arm out in front of Ron as though to stop him but in his battle form, Ron had unmatched superhuman strength; he could've snapped Neville's arm with his pinkie finger. However, Ron thankfully retained his human thoughts and feelings in this form even if he followed more baser instincts most of the time. He refrained from hurting Neville, his friend, and turned to look at Hermione. 

"Hermione!" he called out, his voice deeper than usual, and growled. "Come on!" 

Harry saw another Death Eater moving to strike. His hand to his temple, Harry accessed his telepathic ability. The Death Eater in question had not a single shred of Occlumency in him, which made it all the more easier for Harry to tap into his mind. 

_Stop_, Harry willed the Death Eater. The Death Eater's hand froze in mid-air, his wand hanging limply from his fingers and his mouth parted slightly as though he had been hit with a temporal statis spell. 

_Attack your allies. Forget your enemies_, Harry instructed, sending the thought from his mind straight to the mind of the unnamed Death Eater. 

Immediately, as though confounded, the Death Eater spun on his heels, pointed his wand at his fellow Death Eaters and started firing curses left and right. 

Confusion turned into fury when they realized one of their own was attacking them. Assuming he was turning his back on them, the Death Eaters turned their attention from the six second-generation Marauders to their former ally. 

One of the Death Eaters, obviously a werewolf, moved to strike the attacking Death Eater physically but the Death Eater was quicker – with a quick swish of his wand and a loud yell, the werewolf fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, instantly dead. 

Amidst the insanity of the brawl the Death Eaters had found themselves in, one single Death Eater had scrambled away. His dark eyes zeroed in on Hermione, standing just outside the protective runic circle. A beastly smile spread across his lips. 

Hermione finished the last protection spell just in time as the first curse blew past her ear. She ducked out of the way then threw a disarming spell at her attacker over her shoulder, followed closely by _reducto_ to throw him back several feet. 

The Death Eater, enraged, let out a strong yell of anger. He snatched his wand back up from the ground and pointed it at Hermione, shouting, "Avada Kedavra!" 

Ginny screamed in terror but Hermione had already leapt inside the circle, and the protection wards had gone up. 

The killing curse merely rebounded off the protective wards. The Death Eater that had casted it leapt aside, out of its way. It hit the Death Eater that Harry had used his telepathic mind control power on, killing him just as he was about to deliver another killing curse at his third ally. 

Without the "traitor" to distract them, all of the remaining Death Eaters turned to focus their attention back at the Marauders. 

However, now the Death Eaters couldn't see _any_ of them; the runic circle had been hidden by a Fidelus charm with Harry as Secret Keeper – they didn't want Zankou or any of his followers to see the rune, figure out what they were doing and take a time travel trip back to the past to wreck havoc on a world that wouldn't be ready for it. 

Angered, they begun throwing curses left and right but they only rebounded off of the shielding ward that Hermione had put up. 

They were safe – but Hermione wasn't fool enough to think the wards would last forever. 

Hastily, she tucked her wand back inside her beaded bag – everything they had, all six of them, had been placed inside the bag in case they'd need it in the past. After all, survival equipment could never steer you wrong. 

She grabbed the ancient tome off the ground, just as a green curse hit the shield. It rebounded, of course, and each one of them was thankful that Hermione was so good with runes and protection wards. 

Hermione began to read, the words a mix of Old Latin and Sanskrit that only she could comprehend. 

The wind began to pick up around the runic circle, startling the Death Eaters. They stopped firing curses and hexes, looking around them instead as they gripped their wands nervously, waiting for some unnamed threat to come bursting forth. 

In the runic circle, Harry, Ginny, Parker, Ron and Neville were looking around them nervously. The wind, crackling with magical energy, went straight past the ward barriers, unaffected one bit. 

Hermione was the only one not paying it any mind, her eyes and her mind focused solely on the book in her hands and the complex spell she was chanting – the spell, with the accompanying ritual they had performed just minutes earlier, that had taken them a year and a half to find, and eight months to prepare for. 

As she reached the final verse of the spell, the wind picked up once more, turning into a full storm. Their hair whipped around them and their jackets and coats flapped about. The wind sped so fast that they couldn't see past the grey coloured air. Fog appeared out of nowhere, enveloping the six of them, growing thicker and darker until they couldn't even see their hands. Hermione had to shout to be overheard over the noise of the wind. 

Finally, as she uttered the last word of the incantation, a blinding white light emerged from the fog. It grew so bright that they had to squeeze their eyes shut. 

The Death Eaters, who couldn't see the wind swirling around in the runic circle or the fog, could suddenly spot a blinding white flash of light in the middle of the clearing they were in. They turned their heads away and shielded their eyes. 

As the light enveloped the six of them, the fog seemed to disappear, receding away from them as though they were Dementors being chased away by an incredibly powerful Patronus. The light was warm and too bright, even against their closed eyelids. 

And then...They were no more. 

The Death Eaters, feeling the light growing dimmer, bravely looked back towards the middle of the clearing. The light had all but extinguished. Having not seen the fog before, they were taken completely off guard when the dark mist exploded in a circle, the excess energy from such a powerful ritual and incantation expunging itself out into the atmosphere. The Death Eaters yelled out in shock and pain as they were thrown back by the powerful mist. 

Meanwhile, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Parker had found themselves free-falling down. They had no idea where they were or what they were falling down to. All around them, there was absolutely nothing at all, nothing but pure, blinding whiteness. 

It must have been hours as they fell, or that was how it felt like, before Harry spotted a spot of black and grey somewhere in the distance below. The spot grew bigger and bigger until he could finally make out what it was. 

He was shocked to discover it was a large moving picture – almost like a Wizarding portrait – of the six of them just moments before, when the Death Eaters had surrounded them and Hermione had been reading the incantation. 

They passed another moving picture after that – it was of Parker climbing the tree effortlessly, telling the others she would keep a look out while Hermione protected the runic circle. The next one was of the six of them performing the ritual that had to accompany the incantation Hermione had read. The next one was of the six of them arriving at the forest, trekking to the particular spot where the magical energy converged powerfully enough for the ritual and spell to work. 

The moving pictures kept coming, faster and faster, but Harry caught what most of them were before they blurred out of sight. 

The six of them fighting Death Eaters, Hermione and Parker finding the ingredients needed to do the ritual, the six of them scouring all over God's creation for the heavy, ancient tome that contained the necessary ritual and incantation for them to travel back, the many towns and villages they'd hidden in, the never-ending battles, Harry and Ginny's wedding, the attack at the Burrow, Neville finding them, the decision to travel the road as they brought the fight to the Death Eaters, the rise of Zankou, Neville and Luna's wedding, the rebellion of the Death Eaters after Voldemort's downfall, Ron and Hermione's wedding, the battle of Hogwarts, the road trip to find Horcruxes, the first time they had ever met conniving thief Parker... 

They were literally falling back in time, the moving pictures on either side of them showing them how far back they were going. 

...Bill and Fleur's wedding... 

...Dumbledore's funeral... 

...His death... 

...Finding out about Horcruxes, and how Harry himself was one... 

...Sirius' death... 

...The Department of Mysteries... 

...That horrid toad Dolores Umbridge... 

...Dumbledore alienating Harry to protect him... 

...The graveyard... 

_We're almost there_, Harry thought, zooming past moving pictures of Cedric and the Tri-Wizard Tournament. 

"Remember!" Hermione shouted over the noise of the wind rattling around them as they fell, speeding past a moving memory of Sirius and his escape with Buckbeak. "When we reach the correct time, try to move so that you'll land on your feet! Just like a Portkey!" 

Harry grimaced – both because they'd just passed a memory of Lockhart and his God-awful phony smile, and because he hated Portkeys. 

"There! I see it!" Ginny shouted, pointing below them. 

Sure enough, down below, lying down horizontally unlike the vertical pictures the others had been, there was a moving image of the memory of the Burrow – as intact as it had been twenty-three years ago. A much younger Ron and Harry were laughing together as they flew in slow circles around one another. Fred – or George, as no one could really tell – was flying Harry's Nimbus and the two friends were using the Comets the Weasleys owned. 

Harry remembered that day. 

It had just been a few days after his arrival at the Burrow the summer before his second year at Hogwarts. Ron, Fred and George had come to rescue him in their father's flying car and he was staying with the Weasleys for the last month of summer vacation. 

He was surprised to see a familiar bushy-haired girl coming into sight in the memory; she sat with Ginny in the field, surrounded by tall grass, as Ginny occasionally looked up at her flying brothers with a scowl on her lips. Hermione, a book in her lap, was saying something to Ginny though none of them could hear what. 

He didn't remember Hermione being there the first time but Harry didn't have time to marvel over the change. They were approaching the memory, going faster and faster, and Hermione was yelling at them to pull themselves upright so that when they fell into the memory, they would do so standing up and without any risks of hurting themselves after such a long fall. 

Harry pulled himself up with some difficulty, feeling himself struggle against the heavy wind. It was rather like how he felt in mid-air during a Quidditch game whenever he pulled a Wronski Feint. 

He felt a shudder go through him as his feet touched the memory, and his entire body dipped into it. He could feel the others around him, and looked around at them just as his feet his solid ground. 

Ron and Ginny were on either side of him, and Neville, Hermione and Parker were behind them. However, they were no longer solid entities but see-through, completely transparent beings...It was as though they were ghosts. 

Harry blinked, surprised, when Neville and Parker blurred and vanished as they walked forward with the rest of them. The wind, picking up the same way it had back at the forest though not as severe as it had been then, seemed to have blown them away into nothingness. 

He panicked for a moment before remembering what Hermione had said about their future selves being automatically pulled to their past bodies so that they could merge as one. 

_Parker's probably all the way back in America now_, Harry mused, thinking back to her promise of coming straight to the UK once she had merged to find the others and start their quest to end the war with Zankou before it ever began. 

By this time, Hermione and Ginny – their younger counterparts, of course – had spotted the four ghostly beings moving slowly but steadily forward. 

They both sprung to their feet. 

Hermione screamed, alerting the boys overhead and they immediately flew down to the ground, all traces of laughter gone as they drew out their wands. Harry noted in the back of his mind that there were more red-heads around than the first time, as well: Bill and Charlie, Ron's eldest brothers whom he hadn't met at age twelve in the original timeline, were both there, brooms abandoned at their feet from the Quidditch game they were playing and wands out pointed at the four "ghosts". 

Ginny yelled for her parents and Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley and Percy all came running out of the house, wondering what the panicked shout was about. 

Harry locked eyes with his younger counterpart. He couldn't remember being that scrawny or innocent-looking and he winced at the thought of having to build up all his muscles and stamina all over again. 

It was strange the things he thought of at a time like this. 

He drew closer to the young boy, and he could see out of the corner of his eye Ron reaching his younger counterpart as well. 

A red blast that could only have been a stunner was fired from Charlie's wand but the curse went right through the older Ron, not having a single affect on him as though he really was a ghost. This only seemed to make everyone more on edge. 

Mrs. Weasley ran forward and tugged Ginny behind her, shielding both Ginny and Hermione and glaring at the "ghosts" moving closer. They all looked familiar...And she gasped as she realized why. 

They looked like the four youngest kids in the group...Only, they were older. Much older; it was as though they were in their thirties. The raven-haired man and the ginger-haired boy – obviously older, transparent versions of Harry and Ron – were broad and muscular, Ron more so than Harry. They had a few visible pearly scars across their silver faces, and she was sure Ron had a piercing in his ear, similar to the one Bill had. 

_What was going on?_ Molly wondered, panicking. 

Harry reached his younger self and stopped right in front of him, nothing but an inch of space between them. Younger-Harry gaped at him, obviously having seen the resemblance between them, and his wand had drooped. Younger-Ron was doing the same thing with his counterpart. 

"Don't worry," Harry told his past self. "It'll all be alright." 

Remembering Hermione's instructions, Harry grasped the thin, bony shoulders of his younger self, took a deep breath and stepped forward so that his body floated through younger-Harry. 

For a moment, nothing happened except for younger-Harry shivering. 

Then, Harry's vision went blank as a hot, white pain seared through him. He fell to his knees, screaming in pain. 

It was worse than when Voldemort had touched his scar in the graveyard, worse because he could feel it in every nerve-ending in his body, and worse because it felt like he was reliving all the pain of his past – all the deaths of his loved ones, the torture given to him by Voldemort, by the Death Eaters, by Zankou and by evil forces who had allied with him. His scars burned as though he had just gotten them, and his skin seared with pain. His blood boiled and he felt like tearing his face off with his hands. 

Except...His hands were stuck on either side of him, too heavy for him to move. His back arched as he felt unbearable stinging, needle-like pain go through his spine. 

He thought he could hear other screams – screams of pain, screams of terror and screams of panic – but he couldn't hear a single word over the buzzing in his own ears. 

His mind, having gone as blank as his vision, suddenly flickered as though someone had turned an old television on. 

Static gave way to memories.

At first, memories of the past year with Quirrell and the Stone, of his decrepit life with the Dursleys and his rescue by Hagrid, were the clearest in his mind. He could taste it at the very tip of his tongue. 

Then, another static-filled moment later, these memories seemed so old, as though they were a lifetime away. He supposed they were. 

Memories of his next five years of school after that came to mind, even if he hadn't gone through them in this timeline. Next came the Horcrux-hunt. Then Voldemort's downfall. The Death Eater rebellion. Zankou. Their lives on the road. 

Every single one of those memories was clearer, much more startlingly vivid, than the Dursleys or the Hut-on-the-Rock or Quirrell's pathetic attempt at getting the Stone. 

As suddenly as the pain came, it receded, leaving Harry with his most recent memory at the forefront of his mind: the ritual in the forest, followed by their freefall back in time. 

His vision started to come back to him, and he gasped, hunching forward so that his clenched fists hit the grassy ground. It had been described as a painful, almost impossibly dangerous journey, but he hadn't expected it to be worse than the Cruciatus curse. 

He panted, feeling his forehead and hair drip with sweat, and his shirt soaked through. Once his heart rate had slowed slightly, he turned his head to his right. He saw Charlie kneeling beside him, worry, panic and fear on his face as he braced Harry. 

Ron was in a similar position on the ground, Mr. Weasley and Bill on either side of him. It took a few moments but Ron finally turned his head. Sweat dripping from his nose onto the ground, Ron managed a weak, triumphant grin. Harry returned it, exhilaration at their impossible success fuelling his energy for a moment. 

"Harry," he could hear Charlie's panicked voice and looked up at the fearful red-head. "Harry, you okay?" 

"Yeah," Harry panted out, grunting as he tried to stand up on his shaky legs. Charlie helped him up, keeping a hold on him just in case he couldn't stand on his own. "I'm fine." 

Ron followed suit, almost stumbling back down on the ground. The loss of his impressive muscles had put him off-balance and he vowed to train himself and the rest of their group up as soon as he could – their physical prowess had ensured their survival more than once, after all. 

Harry and Ron spun around, perhaps a little too quickly on such unsteady legs, as they heard distinctly feminine screams. Harry almost toppled back but Charlie grabbed him and kept him upright. 

Hermione had already finished the merging, sitting up on the ground and looking pale and shaky, but Ginny was still clearly in the middle of it, screaming her lungs out and thrashing on the ground as she laid on her back. 

Harry, getting a burst of energy from seeing his wife in so much pain, pushed away from Charlie. "Ginny!" he yelled, scrambling forward and falling onto his knees next to Ginny. 

"Ginny," he took hold of her shoulders, startling Mr. and Mrs. Weasley who were trying to keep her calm and rouse her from her painful "sleep". "Ginny, don't fight it," he advised her, remembering Hermione's advise before they'd started the ritual. "Just give into it...Ginny, it's going to be alright. We're all here. We're safe. I know it hurts, just...Let go." 

Ron had come to kneel by Hermione's side and they clutched at each other as they stared at Ginny, worry etched on their faces. 

_I can't lose her_, Harry thought desperately, knowing that not everyone who tried the dangerous spell came out of it alive. It was the reason why no one had tried to in nearly eight hundred years. It was the reason why so much time had passed that people had forgotten such a thing existed. _She's strong. She has to make it. I can't go through this without her. She can't be the only one who_... 

"Ginny!" Harry cried out, his voice cracking. 

Hermione let out a sob and turned her head away, pressing it into Ron's chest. Ron looked on grimly, unable to do anything but hold onto his wife. 

Mrs. Weasley was unsure of what to make of all of this. Harry – as sweet of a boy as he was – had never really paid any mind to her little girl. It wasn't to say he was rude or arrogant, heavens no. He was sweet and polite to her, kind and friendly, but as most twelve year old boys go, he was more interested in having adventures with his best mate and playing Quidditch. He wasn't interested in any girl. 

So she was shocked when – after that strange display involving the "ghosts" of people that somewhat resembled her son, her daughter and their two friends, and the horrifying minutes when the four of them had writhed on the ground, so overcome with pain that they could do nothing but scream – Harry had run to Ginny, held her with a tenderness that he couldn't hide despite his panic, and had started talking to her about things that made no sense to her whatsoever. 

"Arthur, dear," Molly turned breathlessly to her husband. "We need to get her to the hospital. Quickly –" 

"No!" Harry yelled, interrupting her and her head spun around to face the boy once more, shocked. "No," he said again, his voice quieter. "She can do this. I know she can." 

Molly and Arthur shared a glance, unsure what to do. They had never seen him like that before. Then again, they'd only really known him for four days. He seemed a bit...Unstable at the moment. 

"Harry, dear..." Molly began, trying to pacify him so they could get their daughter and make their way to St. Mungo's. 

To Molly's surprise, Ron spoke up. "Mum," he said, his voice hoarse and grim. "Don't. I know it seems strange but we'll explain once Ginny wakes." 

"What on earth do you mean by that!?" Molly's voice rose to a yell. Her fear was making her blood boil and she took out her anger on her son. "This is ludicrous! We need to get her-" 

"Mum," Ron pleaded, his eyes appearing almost sunken as he looked at her. It made her tongue tie. 

Her youngest son looked like his soul had aged fifty years in the space of the last ten minutes. She remembered the lively, sparkling eyes he'd had just that morning as he discussed Quidditch with his brothers, regaling tales of a game he'd gone to with his brothers and father to his best friend, and now...None of it was there. Instead, there was wisdom, pain, darkness that she couldn't understand. 

It didn't belong on a twelve year old boy. 

Her attention was brought back to her daughter when she gave another pained yell. Bill stepped forward, Charlie and the twins flanking him, ready to pull the seemingly unstable boy away from their sister and getting her to the help she needs, when Ginny's body began to slow its thrashing about. Her body, stiff as she's seized up earlier, began to slowly relax, her muscles no longer tensed. Her breathing grew steadier and steadier until her eyes finally flew open. 

Ginny coughed a few times, turning her head to the side to shield her eyes from the blazing sun directly above her. Her eyes found Harry who was cradling her and she sat up immediately, giving herself a head rush. 

"Harry," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears at the fresh memory of the pain. She launched herself at him, hugging him tightly around the neck and pressing her lips firmly against his. 

"Whoa!" Bill yelled, eyes widening in shock at Ginny's actions. 

"Whoa," Charlie agreed when Harry – instead of pushing her away and being embarrassed – pulled her closer until she was practically sitting on his lap, his fingers tangling in her red hair as he kissed her back with vigour. 

"Ginevra Molly Weasley!" Molly shouted, flustered and scandalised. She was partially glad that Ginny wouldn't get her heart broken from her crush but the two were far too young for such displays of passion. For heaven's sake, they were only eleven and twelve years old! 

Ginny and Harry pulled apart, chests heaving and faces tomato red. Hermione giggled and Ron made a mental note to only kiss Hermione when no one else was around as he smirked at his sister and his best friend. 

Ginny turned her head towards her mother and was overcome with emotion yet again. This was the first time she had seen her parents alive in twelve years. The last time she had seen them, they had been dead and bloody, their bodies broken and burning as the Burrow went up in flames. They hadn't been able to salvage any bodies or given any of them a real funeral as they'd had to run immediately to evade more Death Eaters on their way to the Burrow. It had been the last time Ginny had ever seen her family or his childhood home ever again – until now. 

She launched herself at her parents, one arm around their necks, and sobbed as she hugged them tightly. She wanted to tell them that she loved them but her throat was too tight and she was unable to form real words, sobs ripped from her body violently. 

"Ginny!" Arthur Weasley patted his daughter's back, shocked by her reaction. _That couldn't have had anything to do with Molly's scolding_...He shared a startled, concerned look with his wife. _What on earth was going on?_

It took Ginny a while to calm down, and she cried as she hugged and kissed each of her brothers. They would've teased her for being so ridiculously female but Ron did the same, as did Harry and Hermione whom some of them (namely Bill, Charlie and Percy) didn't know very well. 

Add to the fiasco of the strange "ghosts" and the painful spasms the four had gone through earlier...No one knew what to think. 

Finally, as Ginny calmed her tears wrapped in her mother's arms, Harry and Ron shared a meaningful look. Hermione caught it, of course, and after nearly twenty five years of being their confidant, knew exactly what they meant by it. 

"Let's head inside, shall we?" Hermione suggested. "There's a lot we need to discuss."

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Well, let me know if this is something you wish me to continue. The story has 49 chapters and I've written to chapter 31 so...let me know.

Thanks

Juliet.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Harry Potter related - that honour belongs solely to JK Rowling. And anything Marvel-related, however thin, don't belong to me either. I am merely playing around with characters and powers, no copyright infringement intended.

A/N: I hope you enjoy this second chapter.

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Chapter 2: The Big Reveal 

"Let's head inside, shall we?" Hermione suggested. "There's a lot we need to discuss." 

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked at each other and warily nodded. Ron's brothers didn't look much better. Harry noticed that their wands were still out, gripped tightly in their hands as the eleven of them made their way slowly towards the house. 

They were so elated to be back in the presence of the Weasleys, alive and well even if they were suspicious, that they almost didn't remember what they had to do the moment they were inside the house. 

Ten feet away from the backdoor, Harry flung out his arm in front of Ron. "Wait," he said, his voice quiet but commanding, a strange thing for someone his physical age. "Remember what we have to do when we get inside." 

Immediately, Ron's face darkened. "Oh, yeah," he said, cracking his knuckles in a menacing way, quite reminiscent of Draco Malfoy's minions, Crabbe and Goyle. 

"W-what do you have to do?" Mrs. Weasley asked, her eyes narrowing even as her voice waved fearfully. 

Bill and Charlie seemed to be on alert. 

"Mum," Ginny said, her voice shocked. "We wouldn't _hurt_ you. You're our _mother_. You're our _family_." 

Mrs. Weasley looked slightly abashed. "I'm sorry, Ginny, dear but...We're just..." 

"Confused," her husband supplied. 

"And we'll explain it to you," Hermione assured them kindly. "We just need to do one small thing first." 

"Don't worry," Ron said, his voice low and frightening. "It has nothing to do with you. We just need to find Scabbers." 

"Scabbers?" Mr. Weasley repeated, bewildered. 

Mrs. Weasley relaxed slightly thinking that maybe she had imagined the unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach and though the four children needed to be thoroughly examined after their terrifying, mysterious ailment minutes before, they were simply being children now. 

Her heart calming down slightly, she looked at her youngest son again only to have a minor heart attack when she caught sight of the piercing in his left ear, and the fanged dragon's tooth dangling from it. "Ronald Billius Weasley!" she halted in her steps, causing the others to stop as well, staring at her expectantly. "When did you do that!?" 

She pointed accusingly at his ear, and Ron reached up to touch it. 

He was surprised to find the piercing – he'd had it done in 2002, just months before Neville had found them, at a tattoo parlour in the muggle town he, Harry, Hermione and Parker had been stationed at for a few days. Harry had wanted a tattoo himself but Ron hadn't been so daring, choosing to go with something less permanent. When the piercing had healed up, Hermione had given him a dragon's tooth earring she'd bought for him the next town over – a small Wizarding community they'd stopped in for just a few hours to re-stock on supplies. 

"Wicked," Ron breathed. His ear still felt a little sore and stinging, as though he'd just had it pierced all over again moments before. It must have happened while he had been writhing in pain on the ground as his future and past merged to become his new present, carried over from the future. He just hadn't realized it due to the excruciating pain he felt everywhere else. "I still have the earring, too." 

"Didn't think you would," Harry admitted. 

Ginny nodded as another thought occurred to her. "Do you still have your tattoos?" she asked Harry. 

His eyes widened. He couldn't very well shuck off his shirt and looked at the tattoos he had on his back so he pulled up his shirt sleeve. He sighed in relief as he saw the Celtic symbol permanently etched in ink on his skin – the symbol for protection against bodily possessions. The skin around it was very red, much like it had looked the first day after he'd gotten the tattoo, and he figured that this must be the reason he'd felt his wrists burning earlier. 

"Thank God," he breathed. 

He really didn't fancy having to get his tattoos all over again. They were necessary – well, most of them were – and he was grateful for them but pain wasn't something he enjoyed even if the pain of getting a tattoo felt like a mild discomfort compared to some of the other things he'd gone through. 

Ginny beamed though she didn't dare look for herself if she, too, had retained her tattoos. Hermione had made them all get the protection tattoos – these were much more permanent than necklaces or bracelets and no one could remove them from their bodies. 

Parker had witnessed two of Harry's tattoos being done and, after a tutorial by the smitten young man working at the parlour, Parker had been confident enough to steal a tattoo making kit from a muggle store so that she could work on the others' tattoos herself. This way, they saved money and they didn't have to stay in one place to long: sitting still would only get them killed. 

Of course, they'd stopped at another muggle town just a few weeks later so Parker could get _her_ protection tattoos; she didn't want to risk botching it up by doing it herself one-handed. 

"You..." Mrs. Weasley looked faint and angered at the same time. 

Harry didn't think it was a safe combination at all. On the bright side, Bill and Charlie seemed a little calmer and Fred and George were already snickering to themselves. Only Percy scowled, looking like he disapproved more than his mother did. 

"What sick person would willingly give a _twelve year old_ a tattoo!?" Mrs. Weasley thundered. She turned her glare on Ron next. "Or a piercing!?" 

Ron shrugged. 

"It makes more sense when we explain everything to you, from start to finish," Ginny assured her mother. They had already agreed to keep the entire Weasley family in the loop – they were all skilled Occlumens, even fifth year student Percy who had found the subject fascinating in his second year and begun training hard since then. 

"Oh, I can't _wait_ to hear it," Mrs. Weasley glowered. 

The moment they were in the house, Ron quickly walked out of the kitchen and straight up the steps, a reminder from Hermione to act calm and unassuming fresh in his mind. As much as he hated that rat traitor, loathed him with every fibre of his being, he didn't want to mess their plans up and have Pettigrew escape before they needed him to. 

Scabbers, as it turned out, was sleeping, locked up in his cage on Ron's bedside table. Sneering at the rat, he grabbed the cage and turned to head out his bedroom door. 

He was startled to see Bill standing in his doorway, eyeing Ron warily. "Afraid of something?" Ron asked, nodding towards the wand in Bill's hand. 

He couldn't blame his brother – having fought in two wars and having been on the road fighting Death Eaters and dark creatures for over a decade had taught them all to be insanely aware of their surroundings and wary of everything and everyone. Even each other. 

Bill looked somewhat embarrassed. "No," he lied instantly. 

Ron raised an eyebrow. 

"Well, you can't blame me," Bill defended. "You're acting very odd. You all are." 

Ron nodded, agreeing. None of this must've made any sense whatsoever to his family. First they had been visited by ghostly beings. Then the four of them had been writhing in pain. Then Harry and Ginny had started snogging. And now here they were, being so sombre about a rat and acting far wiser than children their age should. 

"You'll understand soon," he assured his brother, trying to make his voice sound as non-threatening as possible. His anger at the rat he was carrying made it difficult. 

When he and Bill joined the others once more, they had all convened in the living room. Harry was informing Mr. and Mrs. Weasley that they needed to speak with Dumbledore immediately. 

"Are you sure it's that important?" Mrs. Weasley wondered. "I'm sorry for asking, dear, but I wouldn't want to impose on the man...Surely he's quite busy..." 

Harry nodded. "He'll make time for this," he knew this without a doubt. 

With another sceptical glance at Harry, Ron and the girls, Mr. Weasley made his way towards the fireplace, threw some Floo powder into the fire and stuck his head in as soon as the flames turned green to make a fire-call to Albus Dumbledore. 

While he did that, Hermione turned to the cage Ron was carrying. She hurriedly took off the beaded bag she carried around her neck, rummaging around for their wands. She took out the six sturdy wooden sticks she'd stuck in one of the side pockets and took out the one she owned. 

"Do you think we still have the trace on us?" Ginny wondered. 

"Of course you do," Percy scoffed. "You're all underage, aren't you?" 

Harry and Ginny shared a look, grinning, and turned to Hermione. She bit her lip. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "Magical traces can be quite tricky. There's no telling...I hope we don't. I need my magic right now." 

"Go ahead," Harry said, nodding at the cage. Pettigrew was still asleep – Sirius hadn't escaped from Azkaban yet so he was still the fat, lazy, useless lump he was before then, sleeping most his days away. "We have to risk it. I might be able to stun without a wand, but all that other stuff...You're the one we need." 

"Harry!" Molly gasped, outraged that these underage youngsters were even talking about attempting magic outside of school. 

She was ignored, however, and with a nod, Hermione went to work. Pointing her wand at the cage, she quickly sent a red stunner at "Scabbers". They wouldn't have known the difference between him being asleep and him being stunned if it hadn't been for the squeak he made before going completely still, not a single snore escaping him. 

"Have you gone mad!?" Percy shouted, eyes blazing at their blatant cruelty for the pet that had once been his. 

"Shut up, Perce," Ron said, in no mood to humour Percy's rage when there were more important things at stake at the moment. 

While Hermione set out to work on ensuring that "Scabbers" would never be able to escape or find out any information about this sudden change of events unless they wanted him to, Harry subtly worked on testing the Occlumency shields of the people in the room. He knew that he would never have to test Dumbledore or his five friends from the future; their shields were impenetrable. Harry had made sure he and his friends had strengthened their minds after the war with Voldemort. 

He probed the mental shield off each of the Weasleys. Molly and Arthur had incredibly strong mental shields. So did Bill and Charlie. 

Percy, Fred and George, surprisingly enough, had mental shields as well. He knew that they did master Occlumency during the course of their lives but he'd assumed they'd done it after Voldemort's death – well, Percy and George, anyway. Clearly, Percy, Fred and George had decided to do this even earlier on. 

He didn't know why Percy had dabbled in Occlumency – though he suspected it was Percy's thirst for knowledge that had led him to it – but he suspected the twins learned to protect their minds to protect the secrets of their future business from teachers and rivals alike; they were strangely paranoid when it came to Weasley Wizarding Wheezes. 

Satisfied with their mental defences, Harry turned his attention to what Hermione was doing. 

Hermione waved her wand again and, without saying a single word out loud, transfigured Scabbers' cage into a metal box so that Pettigrew wouldn't be able to see anything on the outside if and when he was awake. She tapped it once to charm it so that it was unbreakable and tapped it once more to make sure that no sound from the outside would ever reach Pettigrew's ears inside it. 

Unlocking the tiny door of the metal box, she took the unconscious rat and gripped it tightly in one hand. She waved her wand at him again and silently cast the charm to ensure he would never be able to transform unless she allowed him to. 

She handed the rat to Ginny, who looked absolutely disgusted at having to touch it, and summoned a tiny matchbox-sized wooden box from within the depths of her beaded bag. She tapped the box once and it grew to the size of a first-aid kit. She unlocked it with another tap of her wand and took a small syringe filled with a tranquilizer potion that would keep Pettigrew unconscious for the next twenty-four hours. 

"There," she said as she took Scabbers from Ginny and injected the tranquilizer potion into his blood stream. "That should do it. We just have to keep doing that every day so he won't have any consciousness." 

"How dare you!?" Percy glared at her, watching with narrowed eyes as Hermione calmly placed the unconscious rat back in the metal box and shut the lid, cutting Pettigrew off from the outside world entirely. "That's animal cruelty! And you, Ron! Letting her! I thought you'd care for Scabbers a little more than this!" 

Ron rolled his eyes. "Will you calm down!?" he snapped at his brother. Despite how much he missed his entire family, he'd forgotten how annoying Percy could be. Now that the reunion had more or less taken place, pressing matters and Percy's lack of knowledge and accusations were grating on his nerves. "We have a good reason." 

"I doubt it!" 

"We do! And we'll prove it to you! We'll just have to wait for Dumbledore!" 

"I'm already here, Mr. and Mr. Weasley," the kind, bemused voice of Albus Dumbledore broke through. 

Everyone started and swivelled around to look at him. 

They had been so focused on what Hermione was doing to Scabbers – or Pettigrew as the time-travellers called him in their minds – that they hadn't noticed Arthur explaining to Dumbledore his requested presence, or Dumbledore himself stepping through the Floo network into the Burrow. 

"That was very impressive, Ms. Granger," he said to Hermione who looked a little startled at being called her maiden name. 

She had married Ron just a year into Voldemort's defeat and had been referred to as Mrs. Weasley since then. They hadn't had a lot of chances to be called by their surnames after they'd gone on the road again after Zankou's rise but Ron and Harry had always teasingly called her "Mrs. Weasley" every now and again. 

"Wordless magic," Dumbledore continued. "Far more advanced than something any soon-to-be second year student would be able to do...Not even most adults could achieve it." 

Hermione blushed at that last part. In truth, only she and Harry had been able to do magic silently. Harry had taken to more defensive and offensive magic; things that would be useful in the battlefield. She still had trouble doing those spells silently, but transfiguration and charms were easy for her, especially things that were as simple as turning a cage into a metal box. 

"Thank you, sir," she said, truly grateful. Her eyes turned a little shiny looking at the man who had died so valiantly eighteen years ago, standing before her alive and well. 

"Sir, there are some things that we need to discuss," Harry said, and Ginny noticed that his eyes were a brighter than usual and his voice rough. He cleared his throat as discretely as possible and continued, "If it's possible...We need Remus Lupin here as well." 

Dumbledore's eyebrows rose up so high that they disappeared into his hairline. He had no idea Lupin had contacted Harry. After the death of three of his friends and the arrest of the one who had betrayed them all, Lupin had closed in on himself. Believing himself to be far too dangerous now that he had no one to contain his darker side, he'd hidden himself away, choosing not to contact Harry even after he'd returned to the Wizarding world a year ago. 

"Lupin, really?" he wondered casually. "And why is that?" 

"I'd rather explain it all in one go," Harry said, almost apologetically. "I'm sorry for creating such a fuss but it's very important, sir, and there's one matter that's quite urgent right now." 

Dumbledore seemed surprised at his words but nodded anyway. "Alright," he said, and silently called Fawkes, his loyal phoenix, to him. In a brilliant flash of fire, Fawkes appeared on his shoulder, giving a short trill of greeting. 

Harry grinned at the bird. He hadn't seen Fawkes in nearly twenty years, ever since Dumbledore had died, but he'd never forget such a magnificent, faithful creature such as him. Fawkes seemed to recognize him somehow because his eyes locked on Harry before he sang another beautiful note. 

"Fawkes, I need you to retrieve Remus Lupin for me," Dumbledore addressed his phoenix gently. "Bring him here immediately, please." 

Fawkes stood a little taller, his head thrown back, and with a trill of goodbye, he disappeared in another flash of fire. 

Ginny sighed. "I missed that bird," she said fondly, linking hands with Harry. 

Molly gazed at her incredulously. "Ginny, you've never seen it before," she chided. 

Ginny grinned but chose not to say anything yet. 

The fireplace roared with green flame once more and Harry briefly thought it was Lupin before Neville – twelve years old, small and a little pudgy, unlike his well-muscled form at thirty-five – stepped out of the fireplace with a formidable looking woman in her sixties Harry remembered to be his grandmother, Augusta Longbottom. 

"Harry!" Neville broke into a large smile. Harry was glad to see some of that haunted darkness was gone from his eyes and smile. "Ron! Hermione! Ginny! I can't believe we did it! We really did it!" 

Ginny laughed as she hugged her friend. She saw his eyes flicker to the window, looking out at the hill overlooking where Luna's house was. She was so sorry for Neville. Not only did he lose his wife so early in life and had to go through grieving her loss, he also had to go through getting her back alive without any memories of him or their life together. 

Augusta Longbottom flicked her eyes from Hermione and Neville, who were now embracing, to Dumbledore to Harry, her eyes immediately seeking out his scar. 

She stood a little taller. "Albus," she said, her voice as severe as she looked. "What the bloody hell is going on?" 

Dumbledore frowned. "That's what we're here to find out, I suppose," he said calmly. 

"The strangest just happened at the manor," Augusta continued, and launched into a detailed description of the odd ghostly apparition of an older Neville that had appeared in her sitting room half an hour ago, resulting in Neville's pain-filled fit and his insistence they went to the Burrow, of all places, when he'd recovered. 

"That's odd," Bill murmured. "That's the same thing that happened to them," he jerked his thumb in the direction of his youngest siblings, Harry and Hermione. 

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled even as he looked on sombrely at the five of them. "You don't say," he muttered. 

He could only think of one thing that could cause the mystifying events Augusta had described, though he had only seen it in the memories of his friend Nicholas Flamel. Flamel had asked him to view the memory when Dumbledore had considered time travelling himself, and had warned him of the risks of such an act. In the end, Dumbledore had been discouraged from it. 

_What could've forced them to do something so dangerous?_ Dumbledore wondered. While Harry might be curious and had a streak for adventure and doing the right thing – as was witnessed just weeks ago with Quirrell – he didn't think the young boy would ever do something so risky, not just to himself or his loved ones, but to their world in general. 

Then again, who knew what future he had come from? Who knew what had pushed him into committing such an act. 

Dumbledore prayed it had nothing to do with Voldemort winning the war. 

"Harry," Dumbledore said, his tone calm even if his question was insane. "What year did you come from?" 

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked at him as though they hadn't realized just how delusional he had been all this time. They weren't the only ones. 

However, Harry and his four friends smiled widely. 

_I knew Dumbledore would get it before we even explained anything_, Harry thought smugly. _Ron owes me five galleons_. 

He checked Augusta's metal shield and was surprised to find that it was almost as strong as Dumbledore's. _I knew she was a woman to be reckoned with but this is very powerful…Quite a formidable grandmother Neville has. At least we don't have to worry about any information leaking out to unwanted sources via Legillimency_. 

Thankful that they didn't have to exclude Neville's grandmother, which wouldn't have gone well with her at all, Harry met Dumbledore's eyes levelly and answered in the calmest voice he had. 

"2015." 

Mrs. Weasley gasped. She clutched at her heart and almost fell backwards had it not been for her husband. "Albus," she gasped. "Albus...Surely it's not true..." she said, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the chatter that had broken out amongst her five eldest sons. 

Dumbledore gazed into Harry's eyes as though to search for the truth. To his surprise, Harry's mind was highly blocked from his and not even his most powerful probing could bring out a slither of truth. It was odd, since just weeks ago Harry's mind had been an open book. Now he had turned into a master Occlumens. Of course, if it had been years into the future like Harry had said, then the boy sure had plenty of time to gain that much resistance. 

Harry, feeling his probe, allowed his mind's defences to lower slightly, letting Dumbledore see bits and pieces of his memories of the future, not giving him anything truly substantial so that he could be told with everyone else later. 

He gave the Headmaster enough to know that Harry was telling the truth. 

Dumbledore sighed and nodded, a little sombre as he saw the memory of Harry and his friends in the forest surrounded by Death Eaters moments before they fell back in time. Clearly, the future wasn't what Dumbledore hoped it would be. 

"Yes, Molly, I'm afraid it's true," Dumbledore said heavily. 

Harry's defences went up again, creating an impenetrable barrier. 

"But...How?" Arthur sounded absolutely flabbergasted. 

Before anything else could be said, another flash of fire – bigger this time, the size of a fully grown human –appeared right next to Dumbledore. Remus Lupin was there, Fawkes perched on his shoulder. 

Harry's breath caught in his throat. He hadn't seen Lupin in seventeen years and the last year he had been alive hadn't been so great for Harry: not only did they have very little contact with each other but the last time Harry had seen him alive, he had yelled at Lupin for being so self-deprecating when Tonks and his unborn child needed him. 

Lupin looked almost the same way he had the first time Harry had met him in the original timeline in third year. He didn't look nearly as haggard or worried, but Harry reckoned that had more to do with no news of Sirius escaping. That had to have taken a great toll on Lupin. 

His clothes were still shabby and his hair was still streaked with grey despite him being in his early thirties – a side-effect of his monthly transformations –but his eyes weren't as haunted. The full moon was almost three weeks away so he looked healthier than usual. 

He looked a little startled, however, when he noticed that he wasn't in Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts. His head spun this way and that as he took in the people he was surrounded with. 

His eyes fell on Harry and Harry could see his chest stop moving as he stopped breathing. Harry's resemblance to James Potter was, after all, very striking. It had grown even more striking as Harry had grown older. By the time he was in his twenties, he could've passed for his father's twin, with just his emerald green eyes to differentiate between them. 

Lupin's eyes dragged all over Harry's face, taking in James' features and his messy hair, before they rested on his lightning bolt-shaped scar. His chest made a shuddering motion as he started to breathe again. 

"Harry…" he whispered hoarsely.

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Well this was the second chapter. Please do tell me what you think of it while I work on my other stories. I won't give you a definite timeline but I hope to have something up by the end of the month. I won't tell you which story that something's for, though.

P.S. Thank you so much to all of you who reviewed the first chapter of HPTM. 

Juliet.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything DC-comics related.

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Chapter 3: The Big Reveal Part 2

Lupin's eyes dragged all over Harry's face, taking in James' features and his messy hair, before they rested on his lightning bolt-shaped scar. His chest made a shuddering motion as he started to breathe again. 

"Harry…" he whispered hoarsely. 

He noticed Dumbledore standing next to Harry, his twinkling blue eyes a little watery, and straightened up ever so slightly. "Professor Dumbledore…What…?" 

Fawkes, sensing that he wasn't needed anymore, tossed his head back, gave a loud, cheerful trill of goodbye and disappeared in a flash of flames. 

"It wasn't Professor Dumbledore who asked for you," Harry said to Lupin, causing the man to turn wide eyes to him. "I did." 

Lupin gaped at him. He wasn't sure Harry even remembered him since the last time Harry had seen him, Harry had been fifteen months old and Lupin had been "Mooey". 

"You…" Lupin hesitated. "You remember me?" 

Harry grinned lopsidedly. "In a manner of speaking," he replied, only serving to confuse Lupin further. Harry discretely checked Lupin's mental defence – which was very impressive – and reached out and took the metal cage from Ron who looked more than glad to have it off his hands. "There are certain things that need to be explained. I'd like you to be here for that – it affects you too in some ways." 

Lupin stared at him for an insurmountable amount of time. Finally, he took a deep breath and nodded. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville moved towards the sitting area. The others warily followed. 

Dumbledore sat on the patched up stuffed armchair that Arthur favoured and stretched his legs forward. Arthur and Molly sat on the couch, Ginny in between them – she was still shaken by seeing her parents again. 

Harry placed the metal box on the chipped up coffee table. Hermione opened up her beaded bag once more, waved her wand and summoned another small matchbox-sized wooden box from within its depths. 

She handed it to Harry who, silently and wandlessly, un-shrunk it. It turned into a large circular wooden box, with four drawer doors built in, circling the entire length of the cylindrical box. Harry waved his hand and the wooden lid on top of the cylinder retreated and vanished out of sight to reveal the pensieve inside – wandless magic was one of Harry's specialties, along with duelling. He opened up the first drawer and rifled through the many tiny glass jars filled with misty-like substances. 

Neville, who'd been handed his leather pouch by Hermione, took out a small vial of clear liquid and handed it to Harry; Neville, surprisingly enough, had become somewhat of a potions master after the war with Voldemort. Together with his expertise in herbology – and without Snape intimidating him to tears – Neville had picked it up like it was second nature. Veritaserum was just one of the many things he kept in constant supply through the years. 

"This is Veritaserum," Harry said as he held up the vial. "Ron will be questioning me." 

Lupin raised an eyebrow. "What? Why?" he asked, slightly alarmed. 

"Isn't that a little extreme, Harry?" Dumbledore cut in. 

Harry shook his head. "I won't be showing all my memories," he explained. "There are twenty five years' worth of memories in here," he patted the side of the pensieve fondly. "It would take us weeks to view these and not all are relevant." 

"And not all of them should be of knowledge to everyone," Ginny added. 

"Why not?" Percy seemed miffed. "If what you say is true, then we deserve to know." 

Ron reared up slightly. "You don't know what's in there," Ron said, trying to contain his anger. He might've gotten better at it but there was still some ways to go. "We didn't come back because it was sunshine and rainbows there. We came back because it was horror and death and blood and torture. You really wanna see that, Percy? Do you want to see how you die? It's in there-" 

"Ronald!" Hermione cried disapprovingly. "Stop it!" 

But Ron's words had gotten the effect he wanted. Percy had grown pale – ghostly pale – and his hands started to shake horribly. 

Seeing this, Ron sighed and deflated. Running a hand down his face, he rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I'm sorry, Percy," he apologized. "It's been a long couple of days."

Hermione nodded, biting her lip nervously. "Yes, we haven't had much sleep," she continued for her husband. "We've had to constantly be on the move." 

Percy, his lips pursed and his face scrunched up with disbelief and fear, stared at Ron and Hermione for a long moment before nodding once curtly. 

Lupin stared at the pre-teenagers, wondering what the hell was going on. "What are you talking about?" he asked, his voice going gruff thanks to his confusion. "Back from where? And what do you mean you have a memory of Percy's death?" he looked at the red-headed young man still looking far too shaken to speak. "He's right there…And where did you get a pensieve?" 

Harry smirked, choosing not to answer that last question. Parker had stolen the pensieve for him from a local Wizarding store in a Japanese town back in 2004. It had been a gift for his birthday since he had spoken a few times about storing all his memories for certain uses. 

"I know this might be hard to believe," Harry said, speaking slowly and carefully choosing his words. "But Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and I came back from the future." 

Lupin let out a nervous sounding bark of laughter but he didn't say anything. His eyes were the size of huge saucers and he stared unblinkingly at Harry as though not quite sure he was sane. 

Harry uncorked the vial of Veritaserum and placed three drops of the clear liquid on his tongue. Immediately, he could feel his brain getting fuzzy. 

Ron, seeing the truth serum taking its effect on his best mate, pushed him into one of the chairs around the coffee table – with such a large family, sofas weren't enough. Even so, Bill, Charlie, Percy and the twins all stood around, leaning against walls with their arms crossed and sombre expressions on their faces as they looked on. 

"State your full name," Ron began; it wasn't the first time he'd questioned someone who was under the influence of Veritaserum, but it was the first time it hadn't been a Death Eater or some other ally of Zankou. It was odd not going at it hard. 

"Harry James Potter." 

Harry's voice was mechanical and his eyes and face had gone eerily blank and dull; no one could fake such a thing though Ron had no doubt Harry would consent to a second round of Veritaserum if anyone requested it. 

"How old are you physically?" 

"Twelve." 

"How old are you in actuality?" 

"Thirty-five." 

"Are you a Death Eater?" 

"No." 

"State your alliance." 

"The Light." 

"Did you return from the future?" 

"Yes." 

"Who came back with you?" 

"My friends." 

"State their names." 

"Ron Weasley. Hermione Weasley. Ginny Potter. Neville Longbottom. Parker James." 

Molly gave a loud gasp when Harry stated Ginny's married name. She, Arthur and five of their sons turned to gape at her. 

Ginny shrugged, wide-eyed. "What?" she asked defensively. "We were in our thirties. You don't think we'd have gotten married at some point?" 

"We did," Fred assured her. 

"We just didn't think you'd marry Harry Potter," George admitted. 

Both the twins were gaping at her incredulously. 

Ginny blushed a flaming red colour but she glared at them angrily, her look fiery enough to make them flinch back. 

Ron wasn't in the least distracted by them – his focus was sharp. He wasn't easily distracted, after all. Out of the six of them, he was the strongest and fiercest combatant and his hawk-like focus in the battle field had eventually led to the same kind of hawk-like focus all the time everywhere. 

"What year were you in?" 

"2015." 

"What year are you in now?"

"1992." 

"Why did you return?" 

"To change things for the better and stop the Death Eaters from starting their rebellion." 

More murmurs broke out but Ron shushed them somewhat aggressively. 

"How did you return from the future?" 

"Hermione found a ritual in the Book of Tempus. We found it and used it." 

Ron straightened up. Turning to the others, he asked, "Does anyone wish to ask anything else?" 

Receiving a negative response, Ron stepped back and allowed Neville to put a few drops of the antidote in Harry's mouth. It took a few seconds before Harry started to blink. He shook his head to clear it, shaking off the lingering effects of the truth serum. 

He looked at Ron. "All done?" he asked. Ron nodded. "Are there any doubts from anyone?" he turned to the rest in the room. 

Most shook their heads in the negative. Lupin remained stock still. Dumbledore wasn't really paying any attention, lost in his thoughts about the "Death Eater rebellion" Harry had mentioned. 

"It's not that we doubt you...Especially not after Professor Dumbledore himself said this is all true," Bill said diplomatically. "It's just that this is a lot to take in. We need to get used to the idea, that's all." 

Arthur released a huge breath. "Yes, this is very overwhelming," he agreed. "Just this morning…Everything was normal." 

Ginny wrapped her arms around her father's middle. "I know it's scary, dad," she said softly. "But I promise…Things won't turn out the way they did the first time around. Everyone's going to be alright. You're going to be alright." 

Arthur gazed down at her, a soft, sad smile on his lips. "And what about you?" he questioned. "Will you going to be alright?" he cupped her cheek in his palm and gently brushed his thumb against her skin. 

"Yeah, I'll be alright too," she promised.

"I'll make sure of it," Harry swore solemnly. 

Arthur and Molly, who had placed her arm around her daughter and had rested her cheek against Ginny's head, turned their heads to look at him. The intense, serious look in his eyes was almost too much of them to handle, but at least they knew he'd do his best never to let Ginny down. 

Harry slapped his hands on the armrests on either side of him and jumped up from his seat. "Alright, then," he said, heading for the pensieve yet again. "There are only three memories that I feel comfortable enough for us all to view right now." 

"Three?" Fred sounded disappointed. 

"Only?" George questioned. 

Harry smiled and nodded. "I'm sorry," he said. "But these three are the most important ones." 

"We have more pressing matters to attend to after that," Ron said grimly, glaring at the metal box once more. 

"Besides," Hermione interjected when she saw Percy about to object to Ron's anger at 'Scabbers'. "While we are here to change the outcomes of certain events, it isn't prudent for everyone to be in the know of every single thing that's going to occur." 

Ron and Neville shared a look then rolled their eyes. It was just like Hermione to say things like "change the outcome of certain events" when they were going to be changing the original timeline in a big way. 

Harry stared at the hundreds of tiny glass jars full of memories in the first drawer. He knew exactly which one to pick out first, having memorized the order in which he stored them so that he wouldn't have to waste time searching for the right memories whenever he needed to view them. 

He pulled out the memory of Hermione doing research on time travel and finding out about the Book of Tempus. "This happened in late 2012," he explained as he poured the misty memory into the pensieve. "Ireland. It was the first time Hermione had ever come across mentions of the Book of Tempus." 

Once all of the memory was swirling inside the pensieve, Harry waved his hand over the face of the pensieve and wandlessly projected the memory onto the wall opposite the sofa.

"I thought it would be easier this way," Harry explained as he received a look from Dumbledore. "There are quite a lot of you." 

Dumbledore smiled, leaning forward as he steeped his hands together. "That was quite impressive, using wandless magic like that," he complimented. 

Harry frowned. "That was pretty simple magic, sir," he argued modestly. 

Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, but not for someone your age," he replied. At Harry's raised eyebrow, Dumbledore simply smiled abashedly, eyes twinkling madly. "I suppose I'm having trouble thinking of you as a thirty year old man when I'm so used to you being a young child." 

"Thirty-five, actually," Harry corrected jokingly. 

The memory started and Harry fell silent. 

He paid no mind to the people in the room intensely watching the memory play out; they were in shock seeing the older versions of the five children, along with a blonde American woman they didn't recognize, and somewhat even more shocked to see a world so riddled with horror and war; even so, they couldn't seem to tear their eyes away from the memory. 

Instead, Harry reached out and took an empty glass jar from the drawer, uncorked it, pulled out his wand and concentrated on the memory of the long journey he and the others had taken to find the Book of Tempus, and the treacherous journey they had taken to retrieve it. Once the memory was safely stored, he placed the glass jar back in the drawer, next to all the other jars filled with memories. He took another empty jar and put in the memory of the ritual, the spell and the trip the six of them had taken back through time. 

Once Dumbledore, the Weasleys, Lupin and Augusta Longbottom had viewed the memories of retrieving the Book of Tempus and of finally going back through time, Harry waved his hand and closed the lid on the pensieve yet again, closing the drawer and locking it. 

"The last two happened in 2015?" Augusta questioned, her sharp eyes narrowing. 

Neville nodded. "Yes," he answered curtly. 

Ginny noticed that his attention wasn't even on his grandmother or anything in the room. Instead, his head had turned towards the window and his eyes were seeking for the rook-shaped house over the hill. 

"Nev," she called out softly. "I know you want to-" 

He took in a shuddering breath and interrupted Ginny before she could say Luna's name; despite her being alive in this time, it was still painful to think of her and everything he had lost between them. It would be doubly painful to talk about her out loud. 

"I do want to," he said hurriedly. "But I know I can't." 

"Neville…" Hermione reached out. It had occurred to all of them, more than once ever since they'd decided to return to 1992, how much more difficult it would be for Neville than it would be for the rest of them. They had each other. Neville had no one. 

_At least his family are all alive_, Harry sighed. 

Neville recoiled from Hermione before she could reach him. Hermione dropped her hand, not at all insulted; they were all quite used to Neville being this closed off and broody. It had been a shock when he'd first joined them after Luna and Augusta's deaths – he had been so stricken with grief that darkness had enveloped him, leaving almost no trace of the old Neville behind – but they'd grown accustomed to it over the years. He'd never gotten better, after all, only worse and worse as the rest of his family were killed off one by one. 

"Now that they've seen how we got back," Ron interrupted, losing patience. Neville never wanted to talk about his dark past and there would be plenty of time for him to get Luna to fall in love with him again. At the moment, Ron was growing more and more restless with Pettigrew still in the same room. "We need to get back to the matter at hand," he gestured towards the metal box on the table. 

"Ron, we have time," Hermione soothed. "We're not on a deadline for that." 

Ron rolled his eyes. "This is one of the first things we agreed we needed to do," he reminded her. 

"He can't break out, Ronald," she said, her tone slightly chiding. 

Ron hated Pettigrew almost as much as Harry did. While neither of them had forgiven the rat Animagus for his actions in the past, Ron's impatience had more to do with having an enemy so close-by, Hermione knew that. 

"Don't you think they should have some time before having to deal with another bombshell?" Harry directed at Ron. "They just found out we came back from a horrific future; witnessed parts of it themselves." 

"If you want to change the way things turn out, we have to move fast – strike before they even think about striking," Ron argued heatedly. "And right now, we have a traitor in the same room as us. It's putting our family at risk – it's putting _Hermione_ at risk. I am _not_ alright with that." 

"The box is charmed to be unbreakable," Harry consoled him. "He can't escape." 

"Are you two talking about Scabbers?" Percy asked incredulously. "Have you two lost your bloody minds?" 

Ron and Harry ignored him, locked in a stare-off until Dumbledore spoke up. 

"If I may, Harry," he said gently. "While this has been very…Shocking, to say the least…I feel as though we could handle one more thing right this instant if it's that important." 

Although he was as pale as a ghost, Arthur nodded and agreed, "If it's dangerous – as Ron said – then we'll need to hear it now." 

"We can handle it," Molly assured both boys. _Men_, she corrected herself uneasily. 

Augusta's stern look was almost as severe as Snape's. "Well, get on with it, boy," she said curtly. 

Harry nodded. 

_It's good that they're so on board_, he thought to himself, even if he was worried that having a previously-thought-dead man appear in the Weasleys might be a bit too much for some of them at this point; namely Lupin. 

He was beyond grateful that they could get Sirius out of Azkaban sooner, though, and even exonerate him. It was the reason that he agreed so easily, "Alright." 

"I'm a little hesitant to do this now – we're tired, everyone's shocked and…" he sighed. "But this will prove a man innocent of crimes he was accused of committing so the sooner the better." 

Gesturing towards the metal box, he said, "First and foremost, you need to know that the thing in there has been stunned and given a tranquilizer potion. He won't wake up." 

Percy glowered at him. "Yes, and I still demand an explanation for such cruelty against Scabbers," he said angrily. 

"Scabbers?" Lupin wondered confusedly. 

"My rat," Percy explained. "Well…He _was_ mine, ever since I was five years old. I thought giving him to Ron when I got Errol was a good idea but clearly I was wrong," he sniffed, clearly very miffed at the treatment of his childhood pet. 

Ron glared. "Scabbers isn't a real rat, Perce," he snarled, looking at the metal box mutinously. 

"What on earth are you talking about!?" Percy had started to go red. 

But Lupin had frozen completely. 

_Rat…Twelve years…A man innocent of the crimes he was accused of…_

His heart stopped for a long moment before starting again suddenly and painfully, beating rapidly against his chest. _No, it can't be_, he thought wildly. _It's just  
not possible_…

"Scabbers," Harry said as he lifted the magical lock Hermione had placed on the metal box and opened the lid. "Is an Animagus," he took out the unconscious, unmoving rodent and placed it on the coffee table in full view of everyone.

"Now I don't want there to be any doubt that this is true," he said. "So, if you wouldn't mind, Professor…Could you perform the spell to force out the true form of an Animagus on this rat?" 

Dumbledore looked slightly surprised at the request but he nodded anyway. "Certainly, Harry," he agreed pleasantly. Standing up from his seat, he took out his wand from within his robes and waved it at Pettigrew. A jet of bright golden light flew from the tip of his wand and hit the rat. 

Molly screamed when the rat grew bigger and bigger, its shape contorting this way and that until it resembled something human. Within seconds, Scabbers was no more and in his place was the still, unconscious form of Peter Pettigrew.

Those who were sitting down leapt to their feet. Harry's reminder that Pettigrew was knocked out cold fled their thoughts in their panic. Arthur pushed Ginny and Molly behind him and Percy looked scandalised that his beloved pet was a man in disguise. Nine wands pointed at Pettigrew as though their owners expected him to jump up and start attacking people. 

Lupin, Harry noticed, looked extremely pale and angry all at the same time. 

"He's unconscious," Hermione assured everyone, holding up both her hands as though to calm the angered witches and wizards. 

"Yes," Dumbledore agreed quietly as he bent down at the waist to look at Pettigrew. His long, crooked nose was almost touching Pettigrew's as he examined the comatose man. "Quite thoroughly at that." 

Hermione nodded. "I stunned him and then gave him a tranquilizer potion that would last twenty-four hours," she explained to those who hadn't been there and reminding those who had. "It was strong enough to knock out a fully grown man twice his size." 

"Why…?" Lupin sounded absolutely desperate. "What was he…?" 

"Pettigrew framed Sirius," Harry explained, his voice growing soft as he broke the news to the Marauder. "My parents switched secret keepers at the last minute; their plan was to use Sirius as the decoy." 

Lupin stared at him blankly, his jaw dropped open as he gaped at Harry. "B-but I…I'm just…They never…" he let out a shuddering breath. Lowering his wand, Lupin sank down on the couch, feeling strangely weak all of a sudden. 

Harry waved his hand over Pettigrew's still form, turning him back into his rat form and placing him back inside the metal box. Hermione closed the lid and tapped the box, putting the magical lock on it again. 

"We'll call the aurors," Arthur said decisively. "Mad-Eye should be in the office right now." 

"No!" Ron stopped his father. 

As much he hated Pettigrew and wanted him to be locked up – or killed – he knew that this wasn't how the plan was supposed to go. Some things they were playing by ear but some things they'd planned down to the last detail. Pettigrew fell into the second category. They needed him to do exactly what they wanted him to do. 

Arthur turned to look at his son, flabbergasted. "Ron, this man…If this is true, then he was in alliance with…With You-Know-Who!" he said, getting flustered when he couldn't say Voldemort's name. 

Neville nodded. "We know, Mr. Weasley," he agreed. "But our plan will fail if he goes to prison now." 

"Wait…You're just going to…Keep him there?" Percy yelled. "I will not go along with harbouring a fugitive! That's a felony!" 

"It's alright, Percy, we have a plan," Ginny assured him. 

Percy glared at her. "It doesn't seem so sound to me," he retorted. "We need to call the authorities, Ginny." 

"You know, _we've_ only had twenty odd years to perfect our plan," Ron snapped at Percy. 

He'd forgotten about Percy's unwavering faith in the government. He'd been blind to its corruption even when it was dancing naked in front of him. He'd only begun to accept the truth and see things for what they really were after the battle of Hogwarts. He'd been very helpful to Kingsley, assisting wherever he could to rebuild a better ministry. 

"So excuse me if we don't take the word of a seventeen year old naïve teenager," Ron continued. 

Percy narrowed his eyes at Ron. "You're younger than me," he pointed out coolly. 

"_I'm_ thirty-five," Ron corrected him. 

Percy opened his mouth to argue but Dumbledore spoke first, interrupting their brotherly spat. "I think we should trust the judgment of these young time-travellers," he said, gesturing towards Ron and Harry. "After all, it was the risk they took jumping through time. It wouldn't be prudent to interfere with their plans." 

Percy didn't look pleased, and neither did Arthur or Molly. 

"But…What of the traitor?" Lupin spat out the last word. 

"He'll get what's coming to him," Harry promised. "That's more than a guarantee. But right now, the main objective is to prove Sirius' innocence and get him exonerated. And while we're at it, we cannot allow Pettigrew to be sent to Azkaban just yet – he'd only break out, and that's more than a guarantee too." 

Hermione nodded. "And Wormtail can't escape until we need him to," she agreed. 

Lupin jerked. "Why would you need him to escape?" he sounded aghast. 

Harry and Ron shared a grim look. "That…Would be explained another time," Ron said delicately. 

Lupin didn't seem satisfied but he fell silent once more. No one bothered him; it was obvious that he was reeling from such a tragic turn of events. 

"Alright, then," Augusta straightened her spine and looked Harry dead in the eyes. "If you wish to prove Black an innocent man, but won't implicate Pettigrew…What exactly do you plan on doing? You already refused to call the Aurors." 

Harry smiled. "Don't worry, Mrs. Longbottom," he assured her and everyone else in the room at large. "We've got a plan." 

"Fool proof," Hermione added. 

Fred and George shared a look and rolled their eyes. "Oh, boy," Fred muttered. 

"No, we mean it this time," Ron was quick to say. 

"Well, we hope so, not-so-little little brother," George smirked. 

"You've only had over two decades to get it right," Fred added. 

Ron glared but otherwise didn't rise to the bait. 

Molly eyed the metal box warily. Despite what had been said about the box being unbreakable, she was still very anxious about a possible Death Eater being in the house. "Well, then, what is the plan?" she asked, a little impatiently. "And when will it kick in?" 

"Oh, immediately," Harry assured her, a smile stretching across his lips as the thought of the plan he and his friends had cooked up. "We just…Have to wait for Parker."

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Tell me what you think.

Thanks for all your reviews.

Juliet.


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